Author Martha J. Egan's background includes a BA in Latin American history from the University of the Americas in Mexico City as well as a half-century of studies in what her Jesuit mentor called La Universidad de la Calle, the University of the Street. Her experiences of living in Mexico as a student and in Venezuela as a Peace Corps volunteer as well as four decades of buying and selling Latin American folk art and Spanish Colonial art through her business, Pachamama, have served as an informal and invaluable education for Egan. She is a research associate at the Museum of International Folk Art; a frequent speaker at museums and universities; and the author of two nonfiction books, four award-winning works of fiction, and articles published in Argentina, Great Britain, Mexico, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. She lives in rural New Mexico with the ghost of an old cat.